In electronic devices, oscillators (e.g., a digitally controlled crystal oscillators (DCXOs)) can be used to produce a periodic signal (e.g., a sine wave) at a certain frequency. These repetitive signals generated by oscillators can be used, for example, as clock signals input to various subsystems of an electronic device. Because oscillators can be relatively expensive to manufacture, the cost of producing a device increases as more oscillators are incorporated into the device. Further, including multiple oscillators in a device can take up board area, or semiconductor substrate area, that could otherwise be used by other components.
Different subsystems can be associated with different standards. A Bluetooth (BT) subsystem may be designed to conform to the requirements of a first standard, and a wireless local area network (WLAN) subsystem may be designed to conform to the requirements of a second standard. These standards may impose different specifications and requirements for their respective oscillators. For example, each subsystem and associated standard can have different specifications for reference oscillator properties (e.g., noise, thermal stability, etc.) and reference oscillator behavior during operation (e.g., frequency drift or abrupt frequency steps in platforms using DCXOs). Additionally, a standard may prohibit certain actions, such as transmitting above a certain power level, producing certain emissions, and jamming adjacent channels. Further, in some cases, additional requirements may be imposed by hardware and/or software used to implement the various subsystems.
Features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which like reference characters identify corresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.